Axel felt that something was amiss.

"Who is it?" He asked, voice deep with suspicion.

"Husband...?"

And when the voice called, he couldn’t help but get goosebumps. That familiar yet unfamiliar way of calling him. Sweet-sounding, yet cold at the same time. A tone that, although it felt as if it was overflowing with emotion, exposed none at all.

"...Christine..."

He called out, the name almost feeling stuck to his throat.

His previous "wife."

"Yes, it’s me, husband."

Christine answered affirmatively from beyond the door.

Axel’s limbs trembled uncontrollably. Various emotions swirled in his heart until he lost track of them. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

Was he angry? Sad? Lonely? Happy? Enraged? He couldn’t even tell.

All he knew was that, despite having a lot of things he wanted to say, his mouth refused to open. Unnaturally so—as if he was having a PTSD episode, causing his jaw to lock in place.

"I just came to say I’m leaving early." She said, her voice apologetic yet not quite. "Something came up in our department, and I need to handle it fast or it’d spell disaster for the company."

"..."

Of course, Axel knew that was a lie.

She wouldn’t go to the office. She’d head out of town and disappear like a shadow.

Pain spread across his chest, causing him to clutch it tightly. Then he took a step forward. And another, slowly approaching the door and grabbing the handle.

"I’ve prepared breakfast for you, so—"

Before she could finish, Axel pulled the door open.

"...!"

Nobody was beyond it.

He jumped forward, peeking left and right down the hallway, but nothing. The voice continued speaking, its source clearly right in front of him yet invisible—echoing mysteriously, almost like the audio from a flashback scene.

"...The fuck...?"

Axel felt confused finding nothing there, and more than that, relieved.

Even if this was just a memory, he’d rather not see his previous wife’s face.

After patting his chest and regaining his wits, he stepped out and walked downstairs. Along the way he tried turning on the lights, but each switch only clicked futilely. None of them turned on.

"Weird... Really weird." He muttered anxiously. "Feels like I’m in a horror movie or something..."

Ignoring the lights, he arrived at the ground floor. A familiar yet estranged sight. It had only been a month since he transmigrated, but everything already felt so distant. He checked all the rooms—the living room, kitchen, dining room, and even the toilet.

Not even a shadow anywhere.

"Those three witches... Where the heck did they go?"

After scratching his head, Axel headed straight for the front door. He gripped the knob, turned it, and stepped outside. But the moment he did—

"..."

He went speechless.

Beyond the house’s boundaries, everything was pitch black. Not darkness from an absence of light—something gooey, like an undulating black liquid, blanketed everything past the fence.

He’d originally thought this "dream" was a recreation of his previous world. Seeing this, he quickly realized he was wrong. No recreation of his world would stop at just his old home.

He spent a few minutes walking the lawn, trying to figure out what was happening. What he knew for certain was that the darkness cut off everything at precisely one millimeter outside the fence line.

A dome of darkness spanning roughly 50 meters in radius.

That was where he currently was.

Beyond the replica of his old home, there was literally nothing else. Not even a moon or stars in the sky above.

Axel didn’t stay still, though.

He walked to the gate and opened it, standing face-to-face with the undulating darkness. Then, after taking a deep breath, he stepped outside.

Instead of his vision filling with darkness, he felt as if he’d passed through a barrier of sorts. Soft, like the surface of water—but colder than ice.

When he opened his eyes, he was already somewhere else.

Axel stood in the middle of a dark expanse, almost like space itself. Below him, a small rocky platform kept him steady. Despite seemingly floating above nothing, it didn’t even shake.

There was more than one platform, too. A series of them stretched forward into the distance. Turning back, the same extended behind him.

After hesitating a moment, Axel decided to keep going forward.

He walked to the edge and jumped the one-meter gap to the next platform, then the next, until he found his rhythm. A few moments later he was already jogging, moving forward with curious momentum.

"Idiot! Useless! You call this work? A Proposal? This is trash!!!"

"...!"

A familiar angry voice rang out suddenly.

Axel turned to the right in shock, seeing a scene almost as if from his own perspective—back in his black company’s office, his boss tearing into his hard work without even glancing at the so-called "trash."

The memory made him frown, but he quickly pushed it aside and kept moving. Platform after platform.

That seemed to be just the beginning, though.

The further he went, the more memories played out—with frightening accuracy.

Almost as if someone had pried his head open and carefully curated his traumas one after another for review. His boss grinding him down. Colleagues laughing at him. People stealing credit for contracts he’d secured through blood and tears—then flipping the script and painting him as the thief.

And through all of it, the "Axel" in the replays stayed the same.

What he felt watching it—the only thing he could sense from the replays—remained firm. As if he’d been smiling in the face of every adversity. It wasn’t even strength, though. He was forgiving them like a pushover. Too afraid of making enemies.

"Sorry... I can’t come home tonight. I need to stay overtime to handle urgent matters..."

Christine’s voice echoed this time.

Not wanting to see her face and dredge up bitter memories, he tried to look away—but the perspective had shifted. It was no longer his own POV. It was something like a god’s view, watching as Christine lowered her phone with a beep and carefully wrapped her arms around her fat department boss’s neck.

"Keke!" The man laughed with a disgusting grin.

Then he buried his face into Christine’s neck—sniffing, kissing, licking—doing whatever he pleased.

"Mmm~!"

But unlike what Axel expected, she didn’t look like she hated it. She was all smiles.

"You’re a bad bitch, using a stupid bastard like him as your scapegoat." The fatty grinned, slowly stripping her suit away. "I bet you wiggle your ass for him the same way you do for me!"

"Ugh, please stop with that disgusting imagination of yours, boss..."

Christine’s voice was filled with revulsion—but her eyes glowed beautifully staring at the fatty’s face.

"I never once offered my body to that trash. I’ve been yours from the start, and only yours~!"

"Keke! Good girl... You deserve a reward!"

SLAP!

"Ahhhn~!"

"When we successfully embezzle all the company’s money, we’ll be living in luxury every day!"

PLAP!

"Hnnngh~!"

"Come on! Cry more, bitch...! You like it from the back, right? Your overtime is just starting...!"

"A-Ahh~! Y-Yes, boss~!"

Axel paused, confused.

He wasn’t sure what he was watching.

It wasn’t based on his own memory—he was certain of that.

Staring at the woman he thought he loved, whom he thought had loved him back, twisting herself to please another man, something rose from deep within his chest.

Not the urge to throw up seeing her kiss someone else with the same lips she’d used on him. Neither was it the urge to tear his eyes out at the disgusting sight of it.

What rose came from somewhere deeper. Something dark and untouchable.

"...Bullshit."

CRACK!

Something inside him broke—cracking like glass.

Whatever it was, he had no way of knowing.